Heavy stone slab with imprint lifted from dig in the Jura mountains

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COURTEDOUX, Switzerland — Normally thieves leave footprints behind, but crooks in Switzerland went the other way, stealing a fossilized imprint made by a dinosaur's foot, officials said Friday.

Scientists working on an archaeological dig in the Jura mountains — which lend their name to the Jurassic period 206 million to 144 million years ago — say a stone slab containing the three-toed dinosaur footprint was lifted from the site several days ago despite weighing several hundred kilograms (pounds).

Wolfgang A. Hug, head of the Jura cantonal (state) Department for Paleontology, said the thieves would have a hard time selling the print, left behind over 100 million years ago by a flesh-eating allosaurus.